THE NATURE, UNITY AND VALUE OF GEOGRAPHY

THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER
VOLUME 35 FEBRUARY 1983 NUMBER 1
Proless/ona/ Geographer. 35(1), 1983, pp 1- 9
@ Copyright 1983 by Association of American Geographers
THE NATURE, UNITY AND VALUE OF GEOGRAPHY
Geography is hurt by a widespread misunderstanding of its nature and accomplishments. The purpose here is to show
how the seeming great diversity of geographic study is unified by a common concern witb the meaning of pke and
the organization of space. Geography can be proud of its increasing contribution to knowledge and to society, but it
must constantly guard the quality of its work. Key Words: geography, quality, core concepts, unity in diversity.
Of all the constraints in nature, the most far-reaching are imposed by space. For space it-
self has a structure that influences the shape of every existing thing. The idea that space
has structure may sound strange, since we usually think of space as a kind of nothing-
ness . . . as the passive backdrop for the lively play of all material things. It turns out that the
backdrop is not so passive. The nothingness has an architecture that makes real demands on
things. Every form, every pattern, every existing thing pays a price for its existence by con-
forming to the structural dictates of space.'
The title is presumptuous, and the task almost absurd, for after all, our reputation
individually and the maintenance of geography collectively depends more funda-
mentally on the quality of our work and the students we attract than on attempts to
define a united purpose. Quality and numbers are necessary, to be sure, but are they
intellectually sufficient? Thus, the purpose of this essay is not to impose a narrow
view of a discipline that cannot be so contained, but to try to express a conception or
set of themes which embraces our diversity.
Geography's strength and its weakness is its interdisciplinary nature. We may assert
that our ability to integrate findings from diverse fields permits us to bring to bear
powerful insights on real problems in real areas, for example, the flood hazard in a
valley or the best economic development strategy for a region. Integration is a real

2 THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER
strength, but to scholars and administrators from other disciplines this czpacity may
be viewed as eclectic, even parasitic, and as evidence of the lack of disciplinary
focus. In an era of declining university enrollment and support of higher education
and of the termination of “weak or non-central” programs, we cannot afford either
to rely on the good will of competitors to recognize our good works or to carry on as
usual as “undisciplined” discipline.
The loss or threatened loss of geography programs or of their separate identity is
not unique to our discipline, yet it serves as an obvious warning to even the
strongest programs that all is not well. Geography has some real problems, but it is
also making a greater contribution than ever before, and is well deserving of our best
efforts to preserve and enhance this role.
We would not be geographers if we did not believe in the reality and value of the
discipline. But it would be foolish not to recognize that not all the outside world
shares our perception. The image or understanding of modern geography is
clouded, even among academics in closely-related fields. We have done little to
dispel this nebulous image.
in Canada and Europe, geography has a strong and popular base in the primary
and secondary educational system, but in the United States, formal geography is a
fragile edifice at the college-university level, without substantial roots of public
awareness and support. And while our students have been remarkably successful at
finding and excelling in a wide variety of jobs, beyond academia, they are too rarely
identified as geographers. We must, then, make clear to the outside world just what
is the nature and value of geography, why geography is essential and central to the
mission of education at all levels, and why the profession or occupation of geog-
raphers should become increasingly recognized.
Criticisms of Geography
Attacks on geography are leveled both at specific problems of particular depart-
ments (lower enrollment or faculty productivity) and at the profession as a whole.
While a local termination or merger may have been decided on grounds of quality,
isn’t the more important reason the judgment by some administrators that geogra-
phy just didn’t matter, and we weren’t strong enough to do anything about it? Here
are some common complaints lodged against geography:
First, that it is not central, that is, it provides no essential dimension of higher
education. While geography may be viewed as interesting, it is not often perceived
as essential to either liberal education or to the training of other professions.
Second, that it is parasitic and eclectic; that it has no core but is a loose collection
of specialties which are more logically components of many more established disci-
plines. This is a serious charge which we had better be prepared to deal with. This
charge is based on various kinds of evidence, for example, the seemingly incredible
heterogeneity of papers at our annual meetings. The image is hardly dispelled by the
curricula at some institutions where there is a geography of almost everything-like
economic, social and political. The problem really becomes serious when it comes to
jurisdictional disputes over courses and degrees with planning, atmospheric sci-
ences, sociology or engineering. I am very much afraid that too few departments
have a core course or sequence of courses which provide a strong conceptual and
theoretical basis for the diversity of topical and regional courses. If we do not, how
can we counter the argument that we are doing sociology, or economics or whatever
under another name? Can geography really be what geographers feel like doing? The
problem is not diversity as such, since other disciplines, like anthropology, have
many topical and areal specializations, but there is a recognition that these all stem
from common theoretical concerns.

VOL. 35, NUMBER 1, FEBRUARY, 1983
Third, it is charged, geography has inadequate standards and quality, as revealed
in its courses, its training of graduate students, its papers at annual meetings, and in
its leading journals. All four of these aspects have been used against geography in
program reviews. Geography has too often succumbed to faddish courses which
may have served a temporary purpose ten years ago, but cannot withstand the
scrutiny of the cost-effective 1980s. Our graduate training is, generally, quite defen-
sible at many or most institutions, but it is perhaps not good enough to withstand the
increasingly rough internal reviews and the heightened demands of employers.
Personally, I am very concerned with what I view as a retreat from rigor in the
training of many students, including the abandonment of foreign languages, carto-
graphic skill requirements, and statistical methodology. The attack by well-meaning
geographers on geography as a science, because it may not always be done well, is a
very damaging disservice.
Our annual meetings are viewed as open and sometimes exciting, but also as
eclectic, with many papers of inadequate quality. AAG councils and members have
had spirited debates for years on the advantages of open meetings to encourage
participation and paper screening to raise quality. Our latest compromise, to require
a 900 to 1200 word abstract for all papers, including those of specialty groups, may or
may not help. Ultimately, the quality depends not on how we organize the meetings,
but on members taking a serious responsibility for their own and their profession’s
well-being.
The quality of our journals is to a degree a matter of subjective interpretation.
However, because issues of consistency of quality and balance were raised, the
Council has established stronger oversight, through the mxhanism of editorial
boards. In addition, there is the intent to differentiate the Annals and Professional
Geographer, the former emphasizing scholarly research, the latter the needs of the
profession: the exchange of ideas, statements of current research, and contributions
of geographers in business and government. A difficult issue which may need to be
considered is whether the proliferation of specialized journals adversely affects the
Association pub1 ications.
Fourth, it is charged, geography is non-functional, that is, it doesn’t lead to any
clear occupation, except perhaps cartographer. Rather our successful competing as
planners, location analysts, or regional economists can be seen as more evidence of
parasitism, although we might argue that we are as good or better, and that these
represent attempts to regain territory once lost to us. Still, in the longer run, the
generation of a demand for geographers as such, as well as the recognition of
geographic training as essential for many other occupations, will be a major goal.
Meeting the Challenges
Well, these are difficult problems, but we can view them as challenges to be met.
There are also many things we can do right to maintain and improve the position of
geography locally and nationally. The local level is probably the more important. The
first broad issue of geography’s centrality in the long run depends on successfully
dealing with the other problems. But in the shorter run programs can be greatly
helped by visibility and participation, that is, by the aggressive involvement of faculty
and students in university governance and interdisciplinary programs. Of course,
public involvement cuts both ways. If we aren’t prepared, qualified and responsible,
exposure can damage, especially if testimony is based on emotion instead of
analysis. Such participation takes time, but it is well worth the effort through greater
awareness of what we are capable of, and through the generation of internships and
jobs.
Establishment of local geographical societies, and the utilization of local officials

4 THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER
and business people in these meetings, and the use of our successful professional
alumni iii the private and public sectors in our courses and seminars can also be
val u ab le.
The second problem of eclecticism and disunity can also be approached locally.
Most departments need to review their courses carefully for titles and descriptions to
determine that they, relate to key geographic concepts and also offer some fairly
clear and useful knowledge or training for ourselves and others. I may well be
wrong, but it is perhaps courses with titles like economic or social or political geo-
graphy which lead to the charge of parasitism, whereas we are on distinctive ground
if we emphasize geographic concepts like region, spatial organization, urban or rural,
transportation, migration, spatial distribution, landscape and the like. Difficult as it
may be, we need also to hammer out, formally if necessary, a complementary divi-
sion of labor with competing programs. The object here is to create sequences of
geography courses that come to be viewed as necessary and integral parts of such
interdisciplinary areas as planning, transportation, population, and environmental,
urban or area studies.
Finally we should proudly and explicitly offer a core course or courses sum-
marizing geographic theory and methodological issues, preferably as an advanced
survey rather than as a history of geographic thought. Concepts like spatial organi-
zation and interaction, spatial or territorial behavior, regional development and
change, evolution of landscape, regions and regionalization, graphic representation,
efficiency and equity in location and in resource distribution and utilization should
be emphasized, because only dimensional rather than phenomenological charac-
teristics can unify physical and human, regional and topical, cultural-humanist and
quantitative-locational geographies. Put more simply, a core course or courses
should get across the message that location matters, that there are reasons why areas
and places are different physically and culturally, that knowledge of how territory is
organized and changes is a key problem in science and society.
With respect to quality, there should be no mystery. It is a matter, at all levels in all
activities,, of maintaining more rigorous standards, and of exercising greater self-
discipline in meetings and journals.
With respect to the placement of professional geographers, we are at the stage
where we have to risk fights by aggressively competing for relevant planning and
analytical positions in the private and public sectors. This may mean putting rela-
tively more emphasis on masters programs, on internships, and on the real world
involvement that is necessary to generate those internships and jobs. Too, the di-
versity which was noted as a possible strength is also manifest as a weakness in the
structure of many of our departmental programs. There is an understandable desire
for broad coverage of the discipline, but with small staffs, this means a lack of depth
and an inability to insure the quality specialized training that students need and
employers deserve and which will gain the respect of other disciplines.
We should not be discouraged by a review of the above problems. Geography has
come a long way in the last twenty-five years. Despite the precipitous decline in our
historic service role to education, despite the severe competition from regional
science, urban and regional planning, and area and environmental studies, both the
status and funding of geography have vastly improved. If we can maintain the
momentum of recent years, we will be able to achieve as well as to deserve the
centrality and occupational recognition we desire.
Discussing problems of a discipline is difficult enough. Now I will take a greater
risk and tackle the question of the nature of the discipline, since most of the above
problems trace back to the nebulous image of geography. The question legitimately
can be asked: if we cannot clearly, and with reasonable agreement, express the
nature of the discipline, can and do we deserve recognition?

VOL. 35, NUMBER 1, FEBRUARY, 1983 5
What is Geography?
What is special or unique about geography is simply that its object of analysis is the
earth’s surface, and that its purpose is to understand how that surface is structured
or differentiated. This purpose is best expressed through a small set of basic ques-
tions.
(1) What is the structure or organization of the landscape and of flows that results
from physical processes; how do these transform the landscape?
(2) What is the territorial structure or organization and the flows that result from
social and economic processes? How do these transform the landscape?
(3) What is the relation between these physical processes and human settlement,
behavior and development?
(4) How do the facts of spatial separation and of differential physical endowment
condition the operation of social and economic processes and the character of
places and regions?
(5) How can spatial process and structure best be analyzed and displayed?
But scholars in other disciplines often ask such questions about the phenomena or
processes they study, the skeptic will reply. According to the above questions, ge-
ography is certainly both a physical and a social science. What keeps the subject
under meaningful limits?
The justification for geography as a distinct discipline is two-fold. First, at a
theoretical level, modern geography is demonstrating that fundamental principles of
human-environmental interaction and spatial organization hold across broad classes
of physical and human processes. The special contribution of geography is not only
that our theories, models and analytical techniques enrich and improve the theory
and practice of other disciplines, but also that spatial processes, behavior, and dif-
ferentiation are fundamental phenomena of central scientific importance and com-
prise the core of the discipline of geography.
Yes, other disciplines do and have to ask these territorial questions. But it is only
geography which realizes that the fact of space is not just an awkward inconvenience
in our theories (economics, epidemiology, etc.) but a basic organizing principle of
existence, that the landscape manifests an incredible structure of both general pat-
tern and unique character that requires interdisciplinary comparison and integration
to understand.
Second, at a pedagogical level, geography can make a distinctive contribution in
its capacity to describe and analyze how diverse physical and human processes do
interact to produce particular regional landscapes, cultures and places. At an
elementary level, this is often the only geography our critics remember (from the
fourth grade) but at a university level, such integration can be an immensely creative
and valuable contribution to international understanding and policy formation.
Key Geographic Concepts
The motto of the geographer might be that “location matters”: that physical and
human processes are conditioned by the fact that all phenomena take up space and
that the quality of locations differs inevitably and predictably; that humans must
continually evaluate both the opportunities and the constraints that the characteris-
tics of the surrounding environment and the separation of its elements present us. If
this is a reductionist statement, and appears to exclude any who feel they are geog-
raphers, I need to know so that I can work on my powers of expression. To convince
the skeptic that this argument is more than rhetoric, a few examples may be useful.
For convenience, 1’11 use my own work, but the geography reader can substitute
others.

6 THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER
One ke,y concept is that territory (space) becomes efficiently divided into similar
areas (“cells”) as a resolution of opposing forces: of the benefits of increasing size
and the costs of maintaining ”control” over a greater distance. Withough elaborat-
ing, it can be demonstrated that examples are legion across physical and human
phenomeina. In some of my work, for example, I tried to trace the evolution of the
placement of towns and the structure of their tributary areas in a part of Sweden, as
the benefits of size came increasingly to outweigh the costs of serving their hinter-
lands and as investment in transport reduced the friction of separation. In another
study, I analyzed the social barriers that tended to prevent the ideal spacing and
efficient utilization of Chicago area hospitals. This study also illustrated a second
principle conditioning territorial organization, viz., the tension between an efficient
structure which serves the greatest number at the least cost, and a social concern for
equity of access so that none should be too badly off.
Another key concept is that the character of the landscape can change gradually
over space and over time as a consequence of two other opposing forces. On the
one hand, separation, to the point of isolation, in particular environments over long
periods m8ust be the basic explanation for the extraordinary diversity in nature and
culture. But on the other hand, the equally powerful forces of interaction across
space, through both physical and human processes that are hindered by space itself,
diffuse and modify that diversity. Those same forces spread the more successful at
the expense of the less successful phenomena or culture traits. In the same Swedish
study, I also explored how investment in transportation and in cities diffused across
the area from earlier developed centers, and how both the fact of space and the
differential character of subareas conditioned the pattern of change. In another
study of an epidemic, I also illustrated the diffusion of a phenomenon, smallpox,
through a population and across a territory in which variable clustering or isolation
of families predictably govern the spread of the epidemic.
A fourth key concept is the differential need for and ability of activities to compete
for access to a central point, and a fifth considers the need or preference for ac-
tivities and people to be close together or apart. The most obvious manifestation of
these spai.ial principles is the geographic structure of the city, patterns of land use
and social space that result from competition and social compatibility principles
which underlie my work on racial ghettoes.
Finally, I will invoke the geographic concept of region. Regions may be defined as
the territories which result from the playing out of physical and human processes in
the landscape. They are the manifest taxonomy of geography, the empirical, interre-
lated coniposites of phenomena which geographers, as both scientists and
humanists, strive to explain and understand. In recent years, I have extensively
studied the political region, including electoral districts. I would simply mention
here only one important contribution I hope geographers can make: that electoral
districts need not and should not be mere temporary conveniences for the carrying
out of elections, but to the extent possible be meaningful communities of interest
that enhaiice voter identification and participation and representative responsive-
ness.
Governments and businesses are continually required to delimit and utilize re-
gions, but most people’s ignorance of the geography, or the organization of the
landscape, at any scale results in serious mismatches of purpose and function. One
of the major and continuing contributions of the geographer can be to find the
region appropriate to a problem for the analysis of impacts, for the implementation
of laws.
I have argued that space-in the geometric sense of separation and relative loca-
tion, in the environmental sense of the differential physical characteristics of areas
and also in the humanistic sense of the unique identity of places-is the core of

VOL. 35, NUMBER 1, FEBRUARY, 1983 7
geography. It follows that the map, and cartography, are absolutely fundamental
parts of the discipline, not only in depicting geographically distributional patterns,
networks, flows and structures but also as a key research tool, in communicating
geographic and spatial ideas, generating hypotheses about spatial behavior and pro-
cesses and recognizing structures it is geography’s purpose to explain. For example,
in Hagerstrand‘s Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process, the map of the pattern of
adoption over time and space suggested the process of person-to-person contact
which controlled the diffusion of the innovation.
My own bibliography might appear to an outsider as dilettantish, since it includes
work in economic, political, medical, historical, and even physical geography. But, in
fact, the discerning reviewer would know that underlying it all is the simple question
I seek to answer: how does the very fact of spatial separation and the differential
character of areas affect the process and can I predict its spatial outcome or pattern?
The idea of geography as concerning the role, character and meaning of space(s)
readily justifies the unity of physical and human geography, of regional and system-
atic, and of scientific and humanistic. It also secures an essential role for cartogra-
phy. This idea isn’t just rhetoric. Think about the task, an important and not really
easy one, of describing and explaining the nature of your home town or area, and
how it came to be as it is. I won’t spell it out, but obviously an adequate job would
involve both sides of each of these dichotomies. Places are unique, but are also parts
of a larger structure; they are produced both by concrete environmental influences
and by their spatial relations to the rest of the world.
The Role of Geography in Education at All Levels
From the above discussion, it should be clear that I believe that geography is an
essential part of the curriculum, at all levels. One major role of geography is the
familiar one-to describe what and how much is where. Learning and teaching about
places, areas and countries and about the relation of environment and resources to
human development is surely an indispensable part of a liberal education, of the tool
kit needed to understand our own and other people’s way of life. The colossal
ignorance of pupils and the population generally about the world around them is
frequently revealed in polls and studies. The seriousness of such neglect becomes
clearer in the mismanagement of both foreign and domestic policy that results from
ignorance of the most basic geographic facts.
The fundamental importance of such knowledge is universally understood in
Europe; perhaps it is America’s historical isolation that permitted us to remain igno-
rant of the outside world, a neglect that is no longer defensible. Knowledge of the
characteristics of areas and countries is appropriately studied at three levels. At the
elementary level it is designed to expose the child to the diversity and richness of
environment and culture and at the secondary level to introduce the student to an
understanding of why the landscape has come to look as it does, that is, how and
why areas vary in density, prosperity, kind of economy and culture, and what this
means, for example, for international relations. At the university level, this regional
geography ideally becomes a convincing analysis of the evolution and character of
national and cultural landscapes, an indispensable component of programs in inter-
national or area studies or in international business.
The other major role of geography is to study how physical and human processes
are conditioned by, and in turn structure, territory. These ideas are readily intro-
duced to students at the elementary level, for example, with regard to how their
town or neighborhood is organized, or with respect to the area’s adjustment to
environmental opportunities (kind of farming in the area) or constraints (flood
hazard, etc.).
At the university level, this aspect of geography has become dominant, as we

8 THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER
specialize in analyzing spatial behavior and structure with regard to particular pro-
cesses like industrial location, trade and transportation, health services, or urban
structure. It is this topical diversity that has opened geography up to attack as lacking
a core, as raiding the territory of other fields, because we have not made clear the
commonality of our concern with how these topics exemplify principles of spatial
behavior and organization.
In addition to our traditional introductory survey course, which so often em-
phasizes the cultural diversity of the landscape, it may be useful to consider a rigor-
ous senior course which emphasizes spatial thinking (how we perceive and operate
in the environment), behavior and structure of individuals, organizations and coun-
tries. This course when done well, demonstrates the centrality of geography to an
advanced education. Individuals, private firms, and public entities are continually
confronied with critical spatial decisions, viz., where to invest, where to put
facilities, where, how and why to zone or extend infrastructure, where various kinds
of impacts of location decisions will occur, and how to deal with such regional
problems as health or transit across a tangle of jurisdictions. These are all geographic
problems, and geography can and should help train all those private and public
sector persons who will make these kinds of decisions.
The Occupation or Profession of Geographer
Although it may be evident that the pervasiveness of spatial decisions in life should
make geography an essential educational endeavor at all levels, what of the geog-
rapher in other roles? It’s only too clear that for now the appellation “geographer”
lacks specificity and meaning to most employers. The name “geographer” is
used in the intelligence community and in foreign affairs to mean persons trained in
some cciuntry or region of the world, but that is a restrictive role. The specialty of
cartographer is the clearest occupation of geographers, but again serves only a
minority of our graduates.
In fact, geography graduates are successfully competing for and working in a
number of public and private sector positions that involve locational analysis or
location decisions or evaluations-notably in planning at all levels and of all types.
Whether we use the term geographer, regional analyst, or location analyst, our need
is to demonstrate and publicize the importance to public agencies and private firms
of employing one or more, just as they employ economists or psychologists to cover
other needs. Clearly, geographers are competing for this kind of work with planners,
regional or urban economists, specialists in marketing and operations research, and
related business graduates. These fields (and also regional science) have grown in
part because of geography’s failure to provide adequately trained professional spe-
cialists.
The preceding remarks basically concern geography in the colleges and univer-
sities. But strengthening these programs is not enough. Yet more difficult but as
important is to revitalize geography in the schools and to make geography known to
the general public and to the decision-makers of society. These concerns are going
to be, I hope, the focus of AAG and NCGE leadership over the next few years. I still
believe that the first task requires more than the casual cooperation between the
AAG and NCGE, but at least federation and the bringing to bear of vastly greater time
and resources than we‘ve expended before. And I suspect that the latter, national
public awareness, also requires levels and kinds of collaboration, as with the Na-
tional Geographic Society, that we have not seen in the past, and investment in
publicity and publishing that we have not been willing to make.
Rewards and recognition will only come from work and investment. The real world
is more competitive than collegial. In fact, the respect for geography has vastly

improved since I first entered geography almost thirty years ago. We have created
the intellectual basis for a stronger reentry into the schools and for a greater societal
role, but we must also constantly guard the quality of our programs and publications.
RICHARD MORRILL is completing years of service to the AAG, including the presidency in 1981-82. Despitq
a decade as head of the department at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, he has tried to
maintain an active teaching, research and service role, particularly with respect to population, regional
development and political geography.
Professional Geographer, 35(1), 1983, pp. 9- 17
0 Copyright 1983 by Association of American Geographers
ETHICS IN GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH*
Bruce Mitchell
University of Waterloo
and
Dianne Draper
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Ethical dilemmas involving issues of harm-benefit, privacy, deception, and sponsor relations are encountered fre-
quently in geographical research. Geographers have not always been sensitive to ethical issues, nor have they always
been able to reconcile their obligations to understanding and knowledge with those of respecting the dignity and
integrity of research subjects. This paper reviews these fundamental ethical concerns. Four strategies for handling
ethical difficulties are reviewed: individual self-regulation, disciplinary responses, institutional controls, and external
controls. Individual self-regulation is recommended. Key Words: harm-benefit, privacy, deception, sponsor rela-
tions, individual self-regulation.
A frequent dilemma in geographical research is how to accommodate the tension
which arises between the investigator’s commitment to explanation, understanding,
and knowledge, and hidher obligation as a member of society to respect the privacy,
dignity and integrity of those people or animals under study. This basic concern
should interest human and physical geographers whether in universities, government
agencies, or private firms, in developed or developing nations. Compared to
other disciplines including anthropology [?I, political science [2], psychology [3], and
sociology [4], the geographical discipline as a whole, unfortunately, has shown relatively
little explicit concern with associated ethical issues in research. Even though
Buttimer [7, 81, Bunge [6], Could [72], Hart [14], Harvey [75], Szymanski and Agnew
[28], and Zelinsky [34, 351 have addressed ethical questions, the discipline as awhole
has not shown the type or degree of concern exhibited by cognate disciplines which
have extensively debated the appropriateness of ethical codes and certification to
improve the handling of ethical dilemmas.
If ethics suggests standards of right or wrong, or that part of science involving
* The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable suggestions provided by Richard Morrill and Thomas Wilbanks
in an earlier draft of this paper.